DIY Baby Food

When I was pregnant, and reading and learning about all things baby, there are a lot of things I said I would or would not do. 

"I will not give my baby a pacifier."  I did.

 "I will not let my baby cry-it-out."  I did (but I hated every minute of it, so it doesn't count). 

"I will use only cloth diapers."  True, except for the "only" part. 

I will breastfeed.  I do. 

I will make my own baby food.  I do.

It is really much easier than I thought it would be.  Last night I made some lentil blends for Piglet.  Start with some basic ingredients:

In this case I used a mirepoix (mira pwa).  That is french for carrot, onion and celery.  Well, it probably translates more elegantly than that but google translator was no help.  Where was I?  Oh, mirepoix sauted in EVOO.

Next, stir in a pound of lentils, 3 cups of chicken stock, three cups of water, a bay leaf and a table spoon of cumin.  What?  Your baby doesn't eat cumin? Piglet has a very sophisticated palate (that was an inside joke for one of my readers--you know who you are) one of his favorite things I've made is curried carrots.  He didn't care for broccoli though.  Apparently you are not supposed to feed little ones broccoli.  He got a rash.

So, back to the baby food.  Let it all simmer for about 20 minutes.  It should look like this:

Then you let it cool off.  Seriously, it is not fun (and sometimes dangerous) to try to blend hot things.  While you wait for it to cool you could do what I did and grab a glass of wine and curl up with your favorite blogs.  Or you could grab some wine now.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Oh, thanks for coming back!  So way up at the begining of this post you might remember that I said I was making lentil blends.  I also cooked up a bag of frozen peas, some sweet potatoes and Grandpa Mike's organically grown green beans.  Then, you blend. It is easiest if you work in small batches, and add just a bit of water to help get things going.

 

I use these little glad containers for food storage. 

They are the perfect size for baby portions.  The down-side, they are plastic, which means I prefer not to microwave them.  But it is easy enough to run them under water for a few seconds and then put the baby-food-cicle into a microwave safe dish.

Six or so small batches later and you've got a whole lotta baby food. 

Not bad for an hour of work.

Now, where to put it all...  Uh-oh.  Mama needs a new freezer.

Thanks for dinner, Mama!